Any tips for first time house searching?

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Any tips for first time house searching?

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Any of you baws have tips for a first timer?

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Don't ever purchase anything when you are emotional. If you like something and are strongly considering it, back out of it (emotionally) and come back to it again, perhaps the next day.

I use the 10-10-10 method. Is this something I would like in 10 days? Is this something I am going to like in 10 months? Is this something I am going to like in 10 years? Depending upon what you're criteria is, asking yourself these 3 questions after you have taken a step back can provide you with additional clarity and perspective.

Also, if in Louisiana, don't believe the TV shows that you see on TV where the buyer paid above the asking price, because of a bidding war. That makes for good TV. But not necessarily a smart(er) investment.

Don't plan on your first home being your forever home. You don't know what you love and hate about owning a house until you own one. You'll find features of a house that you thought you'd like and end up hating and vice versa. Use the starter home to figure out what you really want in a forever home if you have a desire to someday have a forever home.

Only regret I have is not saving up 20% before buying my first house.

Other advice would be to start looking much lower than your absolute limit. You WILL 99% of the time end up buying over your budget because you will think if I just spend $10k more, I get so much more house! Very hard to resist so start low enough you got plenty of room to slide the budget up.

Also I would recommend finding a mortgage lender that will give you recasting/reamortization options on your mortgage.

What about south

Location is more important than any features. Don't overlook ugly houses in great areas; you can fix ugly, you can't fix location. Be willing to look past crummy landscaping, blah color choices, and general interior decor issues. You (or a competent interior decorator) can make most anything look great.

Since I am about 2 years removed from this situation, I'll give you my two cents. First off, we bought a house that I had to spend almost a month in before we could move in. Poor worksmanship was looked over because it didn't seem like a huge project. The "contractor" that worked on our house was a lazy piece of garbage and I make sure to let everyone who asks know what kind of work he does. So don't look over "small" issues unless you are 100% certain that you can handle it. Those seams in your sheet rock will never look right until you rip them out and start over.

My second piece of advice is layout. You will probably not find a perfect starter home, but pay attention to what your needs are. Do you have a dog? Then make sure that you won't have to do major improvements or fixes to keep the dog in the back yard. Want a patio? Buy a house with one already installed.

Note the condition of your future neighbor's properties. (Is the fence line cleaned, yard kept up?) This will tell you a lot about the type of people living next to you. I wish I'd noticed a few things...

Location
Schools if you have kids
Sleep on it overnight or a few days...
Don't get too attached to just one house...look at all the inventory in your area with an open mind
Remember things can be changed with a coat of paint and simple renovation....and your first house won't be your last house...

Right now we have a little under 15%. The goal is to have 20% before we seriously start looking for houses within budget.

Can you elaborate a little further on your last points? Thanks so much for the advice, this is a lot of good stuff. Putting it in my notes as we speak.

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Can you elaborate a little further on your last points?

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I guess you mean my last two points. Sure.

1) Just an example, if your firm budget limit is $200k, I'd recommend starting to look around $175k-180k. Because for many, no matter the value of what you want to spend, you will end up spending more. If you look at $175k houses, you'll undoubtedly start looking at houses at $180k to $185k and find some things that you think would be nice to have and it isn't that much more. Shopping at your budget when it comes to homes rarely goes according to plan so try and start low and give yourself some space to move up.

2) Recast/reamortization: This is an option that some mortgage lenders offer. What it does is allow you to make extra payments on principal and then recast the balance for the remaining life of the loan to lower your monthly mortgage payment.

So for example, say you have 30 year $150k at 5% mortgage. Your monthly payment is around $800. Now say you were making extra payments and in 10 years you have paid ahead about $20k of principle. Your outstanding principle would be around $100k (instead of $120k had you not been paying extra).

Now you have a "life happens" moment and you need to free up your monthly budget due to income loss or something. If you recast, they'll take that $100k and reamortize it over the remaining 20 years. This will drop your monthly payment from $805 to $660.

It works kind of like an emergency fund option in a way. The biggest reason to have it right now is that historically speaking interest rates are still low. Reamortizing is like refinancing but getting to keep your low interest rate. It protects you from future higher rates.

Lots of good advice as I’m in the same boat in the next 12 mos. This may be a very naive question, but outside of online calculators, what are some tools or rules for understanding your budget when buying a first home?

For example, our rent is currently $1850/mo and we are comfortably saving. (Dual income no kids) Do we look for something in that range? Less, more? TIA